The Danish documentary Bag Facaden, aired on Thursday 5 January 2012 a programme about a Dane, Michael Larsen, who has been cheating people in Denmark from his residence in Thailand.
The program showed at least 35 Danes that had been cheated by Michael so far. According to the programme, the Danish police has made no progress in initiatives of his arrest or investigation on him, even with some of his customers receiving threatening mails from him after making police reports. Some of the mails were faked as if they had been sent by Hells Angels Europe.
Michael Larsen advertises frequently in Den Blaa Avis of the various items he sells such as festival tickets, Apple iPhones, silverware and travel tickets. His usual strategy is to get the customers to send a deposit first through a very persuasive conversation with them. The items ordered however, would never be delivered to them.
One of the emails received by a customer of his was shown on the programme. In that email, he had included the Maersk logo giving an impression that he was in some way affiliated with the Danish shipping giant, putting at ease any doubts the customer had of doing business with him.
Tommy Jensen who is also a Dane living in Thailand, has had troubles of his own with the swindler. The two of them had apparently disagreed on a transaction concerning a few hundred Danish kroners and currently, Michael Larsen is demanding for several thousands of Danish kroner, threatening to cut his fingers off if he doesn’t pay.
Tommy Jensen has reported this both to the police in Denmark and the Danish police in Bangkok. He has been told that the police is unable to assist him because, according to the Danish police in Bangkok, the crime is committed in Thailand. That makes it is a case for the Thai police.
Maria Andersen, a journalist working on the programme, had called Michael Larsen confronting him of his crimes. He responded by saying “Is that really so? Why has the police then done nothing about it?” – see the large photo. He later called and threatened to kill her when he heard there was going to be a program about him.
Michael Larsen has for years been on financial support from the Danish government and receives currently according to the program annually about 200.000 Danish kroner – little over 1 million Thai Baht – of the Danish tax payers money.
